

The Numinous Podcast
Carmen Spagnola
The Numinous Podcast is a show about intuition, spirituality and the mystery of life. The host, Carmen Spagnola, is an intersectional witch and clinical hypnotherapist who has smart, soulful conversations with interesting people. The lineup is diverse, the topics are eclectic, and the people are down-to-earth (mostly).
Episodes
Mentioned books

Dec 22, 2024 • 16min
TNP255 {The Spirit of Yuletide Miniseries} Part 8: Father's Night & Spirits of Place (Dec 22)
This is one of my favourite episodes because cultivating intimacy with the land I live on and the Spirits of Place is one of my favourite things to do. It also addresses, briefly yet deeply, how we can attend to the impacts of imperialism, colonialism and patriarchy in our spiritual work, especially4 at wintertime.
Buy The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes & Rituals for the Wheel of the Year
Pre-order Spells for the Apocalypse: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times (publication date: Jan.14, 2025)
~ Join us in The Numinous Network ~

Dec 21, 2024 • 24min
TNP254 {The Spirit of Yuletide Miniseries} Part 7: Winter Solstice and the Old Woman of Winter (Dec 21)
It all begins with the Mother. Tonight on the longest night of the year, we honour our matrilineages and the spiritual lineages of prophesy, blessing, abundance and nurturance passed down through the ages through myths concerning Crones.
Source materials for this miniseries:
A Brief History of Christmas Tradition
Apple Tree Lore, druidry.org
A Visit from La Befana, JSTOR Daily
Bärbeletreiben
Biedermeier period
Berserks In History and Legend, M.Speidel
Between the “Thracian Substratum” and “Oriental Accretions”: Bulgarian Mumming and the National Heritage Canon, Ivo Strahilov
CHRISTMAS GIFTS AND THE GIFT-BRINGER, LESLIE D. JOHNSTON
Demons and Spirits of the Land: Ancestral Lore and Practices, C.Lecouteux
Deutsches Weinachsmuseum, All About Christmas Glass
Doe A Deer A Female Deer, Danielle Prohom Olson
Feasts and Feasting in the Fourteenth Century, Jon Mackley
foodtimeline.org
Frau Holle in Legend
HiddenGlen.org, Michael Newton's courses are chock full of Gaelic lore and language. Highly recommended.
How Guy Lombardo Became Mr.New Year's Eve, Canadian Encyclopedia
Industrial Revolution, Chocolate Revolution
Lucy of Syracuse. Patron saint of eye disorders, Carlos Ortiz-Hidalgo
Marzipan Pigs Christmas Tradition
Notes on Italian Folk Customs, Stanley Gee
Otto Hofler, Wikipedia
Perchten and Krampusse: Living Mask Traditions in Austria and Bavaria, Molly Carter
Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Undead, Claude Lecouteux
Roast Beef, The New Poor Law, and the British Nation, 1834-63, N.Durbach
St. Lucia's Day: An Italian saint, a German child and a female demon all play a role in the story of 13 December, ScienceNorway.no
St.Lucy, Brittanica.com
Shedding Light on Saint Lucy, Aubrey Minshew
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Unknown author
Some Ancient and Modern Yuletide Customs (Dec.1939), L.Johnston
Sugar Past and Present
The Kissing Bough
The Ancient Jus Gentium of the Aryans (1899)
The Feast of Saint Barbara with Pagan Traditions
The Krampus in Austria: A Case of Booming Identity Politics, Gertraud Seiser and Matthäus Rest
The Lussekatter
The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year, L.Raedisch
The Pomander: A Brief History
The Problem of Mysteriousness of Baba Yaga Character in Religious Mythology, Evgenia V. Ivanova
The Rowan Tree and a Rowan Cross
The Scots Kitchen (1929), F.McNeill
The Silver Bough, Volume 3: A Calendar of Scottish National Festivals - Hallowe’en to Yule (1961), F.McNeill
The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices, C.Lecouteux
The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, B.Walker
Unwrapping Yuletide: A Century of Icelandic Traditions, Gudrun Jonina Gunnlaugsdottir
We Don't Know The Origin Of The Candy Cane But They Almost Certainly Were Not Christian, Smithsonian Magazine
Witches, Werewolves and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages, Claude Lecouteux
Yule: The Pagan Holiday of Light, The TROTH | Education and Service for Inclusive Heathenry
Yuletide Monsters: Christmas Hauntings in Medieval Literature and Modern Popular Culture, Medieval Studies Blog Hosted by the University of Notre Dame's Medieval Institute
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Buy The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes & Rituals for the Wheel of the Year
Pre-order Spells for the Apocalypse: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times (publication date: Jan.14, 2025)
~ Join us in The Numinous Network ~

Dec 4, 2024 • 25min
TNP253 {The Spirit of Yuletide Miniseries} Part 6: Krampus, Lussi & Holiday Horror
Antifascism for the holidays!
Buy The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes & Rituals for the Wheel of the Year
Pre-order Spells for the Apocalypse: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times (publication date: Jan.14, 2025)
The Krampus in Austria: A Case of Booming Identity Politics by Gertraud Seiser and Matthäus Rest
~ Join us in The Numinous Network ~

Dec 4, 2024 • 15min
TNP250 {The Spirit of Yuletide Miniseries} Part 3: Yuletide Plant Lore
A look at Victorian holiday postcards and the botanicals of winter.
Buy The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes & Rituals for the Wheel of the Year
Pre-order Spells for the Apocalypse: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times (publication date: Jan.14, 2025)
~ Join us in The Numinous Network ~

Dec 4, 2024 • 31min
TNP248 {The Spirit of Yuletide Miniseries} Part 1: The Anticapitalist Festival of Animism
Learn about Fumbulvinter, the 12 Days of Yuletide and their themes, and the stories of European Yuletide folklore in my annual program, now available for free!
Buy The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes & Rituals for the Wheel of the Year
Pre-order Spells for the Apocalypse: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times (publication date: Jan.14, 2025)
~ Join us in The Numinous Network ~

Dec 4, 2024 • 16min
TNP252 {The Spirit of Yuletide Miniseries} Part 5: Yuletide Food Lore with Carmen Spagnola
Inspiration for your holiday kitchen witchery!
Buy The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes & Rituals for the Wheel of the Year
Pre-order Spells for the Apocalypse: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times (publication date: Jan.14, 2025)
~ Join us in The Numinous Network ~

Dec 4, 2024 • 22min
TNP249 {The Spirit of Yuletide Miniseries} Part 2: Grounding the Season
NOTE: This episode contains a 7 minute guided meditation – do not listen while driving or operating machinery! We begin the Yuletide season by grounding into our values and prioritizing just a few rituals, crafts or special foodstuffs. Then we can relax and release pressure to have or provide perfect holiday moments; instead we can deepen into rhythm of winter's work of ritual, ceremony, reflection and restorative pause.
Himmeli straw can be found at The Straw Shop
Buy The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes & Rituals for the Wheel of the Year
Pre-order Spells for the Apocalypse: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times (publication date: Jan.14, 2025)
~ Join us in The Numinous Network ~

Dec 4, 2024 • 11min
TNP251 {The Spirit of Yuletide Miniseries} Part 4: Yuletide Animal Lore
What's the deal with dead bird on Victorian holiday greeting cards? Plus, a rundown of some of the Yuletide bestiary.
Buy The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes & Rituals for the Wheel of the Year
Pre-order Spells for the Apocalypse: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times (publication date: Jan.14, 2025)
~ Join us in The Numinous Network ~

Nov 15, 2024 • 1h 5min
TNP247 Intuitive Planning for the Year Ahead with Carmen Spagnola
This episode is about the four intuitive tools I use to plan my year ahead, incorporating divination, dowsing, and more.
Before I dive in, I take a few minutes to stand on ceremony as I cross and important threshold with this podcast. It felt important to take some time to mark it well. I hope you find the Canadian Heritage Minutes interesting! limləmt to the Syilx Okanagan people for accepting us here on this land.
In this very full episode, I'm sharing about:
electional astrology
water witching
pendulums
Family Constellations
wrestling with cultural appropriation
trancework as a form of death work
The Hellenistic concept of virtue ("arete")
working with your daemon (your good spirit of destiny)
guidelines for pulling an Oracular calendar reading
a special announcement about a new format for The Spirit of Yuletide this year
PLUS!
a preview of New Year happenings including a price increase for The Numinous Network
live monthly rituals from my forthcoming book Spells for the Apocalypse
a new Network event coming this spring: the Soft Sober Jam!
Referenced in this episode:
Chief Walking Grizzly Bear
Fur Brigade Trail
Syilx Language House
TNP226 Wild Horses of the Chilcotin with Wayne McCrory
The Divining Rod: A History of Water Witching, Dept. of the Interior US Geological Survey
About Family Constellations and generally all round awful person, Bert Hellinger
TNP229: What It Feels Like For A Girl with Emelia Symington-Fedy
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Nov 1, 2024 • 41min
TNP246 {WNY Retreat Miniseries} Spells for the Apocalypse Preview
Welcome to the final episode of my Witches New Year Podcast Retreat! As you likely know by now, I have a new book coming out in January 2025 called Spells for the Apocalypse: Practical Magic for Turbulent Times. In this episode, you'll get all the tea on how this book came to be, learn what advanced readers like Colette Baron-Reid and Asha Frost had to say about it, and hear excerpts from two chapters: a ritual on facing Fear, and an invocation for Wholeness.
Referenced in this episode:
The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling, James Hillman
Colette Baron-Reid's Enchanted Map Oracle Deck
You Are The Medicine: 13 Moons of Indigenous Wisdom, Asha Frost
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